Chris Snee went through a series of medical evaluations in the final days before the New York Giants opened training camp on the weekend.
Chris Snee
The Montrose graduate opened camp Friday on the Physically Unable to Perform list. He is still waiting for word on how soon he joins his teammates as a full participant in training camp, but the Pro Bowl guard said he is confident that he will be ready when the Giants need him most.
Snee is working his way back from surgery on his left hip. He said it was the most extensive of the five surgeries – including two on his elbow, one on his ankle and one on his shoulder – that he has endured during his professional career.
“I’m still within the timeline for recovery that they gave me,” said Snee, who had the surgery in February, after playing in the Pro Bowl. “I give them feedback on how I feel and we’ll decide on a proper return date.
“I’ve been around for a long time now and I know when is the right time to play through pain and when is not.”
Snee has shown that during a nine-year career in which he helped the Giants to two Super Bowl titles. He missed the last five games of his rookie season with a serious illness and has played in 127 regular-season games over the eight seasons since while missing just one game because of a concussion.
“If I don’t feel well this time of the year, I need to be ready for the season,” Snee said in a telephone interview last week after one doctor’s visit. “That’s the most important thing.”
The 31-year-old called returning from his latest surgery, “the most difficult; the longest recovery I’ve had.”
Snee was cautious about revealing the particulars of the hip injury, which he said was a combination of the wear-and-tear of life in the National Football League trenches and a specific incident in a game.
“I’m going through the gauntlet in trying to figure out what my status is,” Snee said of the evaluations right before training camp started. “I feel pretty good.
“Am I 100 percent? Probably not, but I’m close.”
Snee, who spent time with family, friends and former Montrose coach Tom Lucenti during a few off-season visits to Montrose, said everyone at home can be confident that he will be ready to go when the regular season starts in September.
“Let everyone know that I’m doing everything I can to come back better,” Snee said. “There should be no questioning my intentions or my work ethic.
“I’ll get my body right.”
WEEK IN REVIEW
MOOSIC – The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders pulled out a victory in the longest game in franchise history early Friday morning when they defeated the Toledo Mud Hens, 2-1, in 20 innings in a game that started Thursday night and lasted for 5 hours and 26 minutes.
Randy Ruiz homered on the first pitch of the bottom of the 20th inning for the 20th hit of the game by the RailRiders.
The RailRiders were scheduled to leave at 2:30 in the morning to head for Newark for one of only two airplane trips of the season, taking them to Louisville for the start of a road trip later that day. The late game turned it into a long night for the team.
Josh Spence and winning pitcher Jim Miller (1-5) combined to retire the last 13 Toledo batters. Six of Toledo’s nine batters went the entire 20 innings without a hit.
The RailRiders had could not score in a bases-loaded, no-out situation and hit into three double plays during extra innings.
Ruiz hit his 13th home run to finish a 4-for-9 effort.
In junior golf, Montrose players had a first- and two second-place finishes when the Anthracite Golf Association Lawler Junior Tour made had its last tournament of the season, stopping at Montrose Golf Club July 23.
Lauren Andre won the girls' title with a nine-hole score of 50 while Lyndsey Kerr was second with a 60.
Chris Spence finished second among the boys with a 44, falling short of a title by one stroke.
Another Montrose player, John Giangrieco, was seventh among boys with a 49.
THE WEEK AHEAD
The 79th annual Lions Club is scheduled for Wednesday night at Scranton Memorial Stadium.
The City takes on the County in the Scranton Lions Club-sponsored, all-star game for graduated players from the Lackawanna Football Conference.
Susquehanna’s Cole Mallery and Montrose’s John Lawson and Will Ely were selected to the City roster. Susquehanna and Montrose are part of the City team that also features Scranton, West Scranton, Scranton Prep, Dunmore, Holy Cross, Delaware Valley, Wallenpaupack and North Pocono.
Graduates from Abington Heights, Valley View, Mid Valley, Lakeland, Lackawanna Trail, Riverside, Old Forge, Carbondale, Western Wayne and Honesdale make up the County team.
The City won, 41-20, last year when Austin Cowperthwait scored on a 61-yard touchdown reception and former Susquehanna teammates Gage Piechocki and Jesse Pruitt made big defensive contributions.
In professional baseball, the two Pennsylvania International League teams square off Saturday at 7:05 and Sunday at 1:05 in Moosic when the Lehigh Valley IronPigs visit the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. The IronPigs are the top affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies and the RailRiders are the top farm team on the New York Yankees.
TOM ROBINSON writes a weekly local sports column for the Susquehanna County Transcript. He can reached online at RobbyTR@aol.com or followed on Twitter at @tomjrobinson.
“ROCKET” RYAN WINS BRICKYARD 400
Ryan Newman, Brickyard 400 winner. Furnished by NASCAR.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—Ryan Newman won the Brickyard 400 in his 13th attempt.
Newman started on the pole and finished the race over three-seconds ahead of runner-up Jimmie Johnson.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to win this,” said Newman. “To win the pole and the race makes this a great day. Matt (Matt Borland, crew chief) made the right call when he decided I should stay out instead of coming in for new tires.
“It’s hard right now to realize this happened to me. It’ll take a couple days for it to sink in that I won at Indy.”
Johnson led 73 laps of the 160-lap race, but on his last pit stop, his team had a mix-up on tires. The long pit stop allowed Newman, who did not pit, to gain a large lead.
“It’s always disappointing to have something like that happen,” said Johnson. “But that’s racing. The car was good, but it was tough to drive at times. We had a good day, and we’re very happy with where we finished.”
Third-place finisher Kasey Kahne had an up and down day, but was running well near the end of the race.
“We kept getting behind so much that it was hard to make it back to the front,” said Kahne. “We really got going near the end. The car just took off. I mean it was really fast.”
Newman’s car owner Tony Stewart finished fourth.
“I can’t wait to congratulate him,” said Stewart. “He did an awesome job, winning the pole and race.”
Newman has said he plans to leave Stewart-Haas Racing at the end of this season, and currently does not have a ride for 2014.
Matt Kenseth finished fifth, followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Joey Logano, Juan Montoya, and Kyle Busch.
Top-10 leaders after 20 of 36: 1. Johnson- 740, 2. Bowyer-665, 3. Edwards-655, 4. Harvick-648, 5. Earnhardt-616, 6. Kenseth-615, 7. Kyle Busch-610, 8. Biffle-565, 9. Kahne-564, 10. J. Gordon-559.
“ROWDY” SURVIVES SCARE TO WIN AT INDY
Kyle Busch dominated Saturday’s Nationwide race at the Brickyard, but Brian Scott gained the lead on the final restart, and Busch was forced to fight back in order to get the victory, and his eighth win of the season.
“It's pretty awesome to win here whether you're driving in Nationwide or Cup, sports cars, Formula One, MotoGP, or anything,” Busch said. “It's cool to win at this place just because of the history of all the automobiles that have run on this surface before. I almost messed up and gave it away.”
Scott finished second, followed by Joey Logano, Brian Vickers, Kevin Harvick, Paul Menard, Matt Kenseth, Kevin Swindell, Michael Annett, and Travis Pastrana.
Top-10 leaders after 19 of 33: 1. A. Dillon-656, 2. Smith-650, 3. Sadler-643, 4. Hornish-642, 5. Vickers-628, 6. Allgaier-621, 7. Larson-612, 8. Scott-610, 9. Bayne-592, 10. Kligerman-589
ELDORA TRUCK RACE GOES TO AUSTIN DILLON
Austin Dillon won last Wednesday’s truck race at the Eldora Speedway before a packed house at the half-mile dirt track oval. Kyle Larson ran second, followed by Ryan Newman, Joey Coulter and Brendan Gaughan.
Top-10 leaders after 10 of 22: 1. Crafton-393, 2. Jeb Burton-345, 3. Buescher-342, 4. Ty Dillon-337, 5. Sauter-320, 6. Peters-320, 7. Gaughan-319, 8. R. Blaney-319, 9. D. Wallace-309, 10. Paludo-308.
NASCAR SIGNS BIG TV DEAL WITH NBC
The television package that NASCAR signed with NBC means bigger bucks for tracks, teams, and the sanctioning organization.
Will it bring more and better coverage of NASCAR racing to the fans?
NASCAR Chairman Brian France said he did not believe the sport was taking a risk by switching its races from ESPN to a different network.
“They have a robust lineup obviously without us and we’re going to add to that in a significant way,” France said. “From hearing from the leadership throughout the organization, they didn’t just want to own sports properties; they wanted to integrate within all their assets.
“They’re doing it right now. We don’t have to guess about it. We’re looking forward to it.”
In a 10-year deal, set to run from 2015 through 2024, NBC will broadcast the final 20 Cup events of the season, with seven races on NBC and 13 on NBC Sports Network. The deal gives NBC the Chase for the Sprint Cup, including the championship season finale.
The 10-year deal is worth $4.4 billion. The old package with ESPN and TNT was a combined $2.74 billion over eight years.
With Fox paying $2.4 billion over its eight-year (2015-2022) contract, the combined worth of NASCAR’s two new TV packages is $6.8 billion.
That’s big money considering the deal is split, with 65 percent going to the tracks, 25 percent to the teams and 10 percent to NASCAR.
If you’re counting, that’s $4.4 billion for the tracks and $680 million over eight years just to NASCAR.
In layman’s terms, it means each track will receive from 12-15 million dollars per race, depending on how NASCAR pays each track. Tracks with higher TV-ratings get more money.
If it seems like NASCAR might be coming up a little short, don’t worry. They charge each track a licensing fee, and tack on all kinds of extra charges.
Now, it’s understandable why tracks don’t have to fill their seats in order to make a profit.
Television is their cash cow.
The new deal, with ESPN and TNT, being replaced wasn’t exactly met with universal praise in the television world. Some analysts immediately began comparing NASCAR to the NHL, which suffered after moving its TV deal from ESPN to NBC.
George McNeilly, a former ESPN publicist who now runs McNeilly Communications, tweeted: “Would anticipate much less Sports Center coverage after 2015 season. Regular season NHL fans know what I am talking about.”
ESPN is still considered the major sports network. Some believe that if you’re not on ESPN, you’re not a big-time sport.
It’s unknown at this point whether the coverage will be better or worse. But there’s one thing for certain. If you want to get NASCAR’s attention, put your money on the table.
Weekend Racing: The Cup and Truck teams are at the 2.5-mile Pocono, PA track, while the Nationwide teams travel to the seven-eighths-mile Iowa facility.
Sat., Aug. 3, Truck Series, race 11 of 22; Starting time: 1 pm ET; TV: SPEED.
Sat., Aug. 3, Nationwide Series, race 20 of 33; Starting time: 8 pm ET; TV: ESPN2.
Sun., Aug. 4, Sprint Cup, race 21 of 36; Starting time: 1 pm ET; TV: ESPN.
Racing Trivia Question: Which Cup team will Kevin Harvick drive for in 2014?
Last Week’s Question: How many Cup wins does Jimmie Johnson have this season? Answer. He has four regular season wins (Daytona 500, Martinsville, Pocono, and Coke 400 at Daytona), plus the Sprint All-Star race at Charlotte.
You may e-mail the Racing Reporter at: hodges@race500.com.
